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When you think of serious injuries, most people think fractures – but damaging your ligaments can be equally as devastating, as I am all too familiar with myself! You think breaking your leg is bad? Try rupturing several ligaments in your knee requiring you to undergo a multi ligament reconstruction operation! Anyway – to define, a ligament is a soft fibrous tissue that connects bone to bone. You have them all over the body – and the famous ones to injure (for the footballers out there) are the dreaded cruciates!

There are several ways you can injure ligaments. In many cases, ligaments are stretched beyond their normal range of movement, and you end up with pain, swelling, stiffness, and the usual muscular related symptoms that will normally die down over time. However, things get a little more serious when you tear or rupture ligaments.

A torn ligament is exactly what you’re thinking – the tissue is torn; normally due to an overstretch far beyond the capacity the tissue has to stretch. Torn ligaments can be very painful – you will normally know when you’ve done it! The pain is normally enough to warrant you needing to see a GP or a medical expert, so you can usually get a diagnosis from them. For many torn ligaments – in the leg in the arm – after a few weeks or months you are commonly back to normal. However, some crucial tears like knee ligaments or elbow ligaments may require an operation.
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If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you are already aware of what foot drop, or drop foot (as it is also referred to) is. But just in case…

What is Foot Drop?
As a brief description, as I am lucky enough to have this deceptively simple sounding condition, foot drop is the inability to raise your foot up and move it left due to some form of problem a peripheral nerve; in my case, the Common Peroneal Nerve. It may sound like something small – but unfortunately, with this condition, you cannot walk properly without a corrective splint.
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How do you know who the best injury lawyers in the UK really are? Well luckily we can answer this question for you – because we know exactly what it is you should be able to expect from a quality injury lawyer to make sure you get the best service and the maximum amount of compensation possible.

Naturally, as we are The Injury Lawyers, a firm of specialist personal injury only lawyers with years of compensation claiming experience behind us, we do all we can to make sure that what we do is better than the rest. And to be honest, we can prove that it is (in our opinion).

It’s easy to start by simply understanding what it is a person needs when they are making a CLAIM for compensation.
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What will happen if I claim?

Many people considering a claim for personal injury will not have had much contact with the legal profession before they start their claim, and the thought of doing so can be quite daunting. People get worried about the “red-tape”, jargon, and waiting and delays. However, people may not understand is that there are rules in place to help avoid long drawn out claims.

At The Injury Lawyers the first step for most none road accident claims (so accidents at work, in public places, in the street, or with products for example) in this begins when you provide your details about your accident or the way in which you became injured.
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This is anyone’s worst nightmare – being high up when the floor beneath you collapses. The injuries you can sustain from falling from a height, or hitting something as you fall from a low height, can be significant. Our bodies can endure a great deal of punishment, but there only so much twisting, turning, thudding, breaking, and bouncing our body parts can take.

We get a lot of these sorts of claims and they commonly relate to accidents at work. Employees are casually working on scaffolding when the floor decking collapses or breaks, causing you to fall. Equally, the structure of the scaffolding could break apart. It’s normally caused by one of two things: poor construction of the scaffolding, or poor maintenance of the scaffolding.

Whoever is responsible for the scaffolding – whether it’s your employers, or another company you are working with or for on some kind of site or project – must ensure that the scaffolding is erected correctly and is maintained efficiently to prevent such accidents occurring. Health and safety inspections and checking is an easy way to do this. Those responsible for putting up the scaffolding need to be properly trained and provided with the right equipment as well.
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We are lucky in the UK to have rather strict Health & Safety rules to make sure we are not come to any harm. However, there are microbes and gases that can’t be seen by the human eye – and when they’re breathed in or consumed, the human body’s reaction can be painful.

People endure poisoning of some kind all the time and on a daily basis. The most common form is probably from food poisoning from poorly cooked, contaminated, or out of date food. If it’s your own fault, there’s not a great deal you can do about it – but if you get it from a restaurant or from contamination that was out of your hands, you may have a claim.

There are certain things that you need to consider though – for one, it can be very difficult to actually prove that poisoning has occurred in some way that is out of your hands. If you get food poisoning from chicken, how do you prove that the producer had caused the meat to be contaminated or spoiled as oppose to it coming down to your cooking skills? I’m not saying anyone would lie, but the burden of proof for claims is generally on the victim – so it can be very difficult.
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Unfortunately, criminal assaults are commonplace nowadays – particularly on a Friday or Saturday night when you’re out on the town and some scourge of society decides to set upon you like a neanderthal for what can only be described as ridiculous reasons; normally involving alcohol. But the question here is whether you can make a claim for a criminal assault or not. Luckily, you may be able to make a claim.

If you were set upon intentionally, it can fall within the realms of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. This government body, often referred to as the CICA, pays out compensation to the victims of criminal assaults if you meet their criteria. It’s basically a compensation scheme to help victims of assaults claim compensation for the injuries they have suffered.

As it’s a compensation scheme, you must qualify for their strict criteria. If you fail to satisfy one or more of their key criteria, you may find it difficult to make a claim. Here’s a breakdown of the common key criterions:
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It’s a nightmare – you’ve gone abroad and ended up coming down with food poisoning! It can easily happen, especially in countries where hygiene standards are not as good as ours. On top of that, food and water compositions are different and that can have an effect on our digestive systems as well.

If you do come down with food poisoning on holiday, can you make a claim? It’s all circumstantial to be honest…

Firstly, food poisoning normally doesn’t last a long time. Most people will only suffer for just a few days. Whilst those few days are painful to cope with, making a claim with a lawyer can be difficult. Circumstance-wise, if you can prove the food poisoning was caused by a place you were saying at, for example, you have good prospects for a claim. But unless the claim is worth in excess of £1,000.00, a lawyer will struggle to act on a No Win, No Fee basis as £1,000.00 is the minimum amount that allows a solicitor to recover their legal fees from the other side. So, whilst you might have a good claim, it may be classed as a “small claims matter” which you would need to seek compensation through a small claims court in the majority of cases.
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Personally I love theme parks! It brings back fond memories of when I was a youngster, and I still enjoy the thrill of the fast roller coasters and thrill rides. Health and safety in a theme park is naturally a significantly important issue. Rides are tested and tried several times, and regularly inspected to make sure no harm can come to those using them.

There have been accidents in the past where harnesses have released riders, or where rides have become stuck for several hours in upside down position’s this sort of thing should (in theory) never happen; but when it does, you may have a claim for compensation.

Other than the rides breaking down or being faulty themselves, there could be other causes of injuries. You could trip over a hazard on the grounds of the ride, or get caught by a protrusion. Similar rules that apply to shops and supermarkets can apply to what is classed as the “premises” of the ride. As with safety inspections that should be constantly carried out by the ride owner to make sure the ride itself is safe, cleaning and maintenance needs to be carried out tom make sure there are no hazards that could harm people, or substances that could cause people to slip.
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The antics insurers get up to when they want to save themselves some money can be unbelievable; and it’s even worse when people end up getting hurt! Here at The Injury Lawyers, we’ve heard it all:

• My insurers say I can’t claim because I don’t have legal expenses insurance
• My insurers say it’s a grey area for me to make a claim as a passenger in my husband’s car when  he is was at fault
• My insurers told me a No Win, No Fee lawyer will charge me if I instruct them

ALL of the above is completely untrue (with the exception of the last one as I can’t speak for all lawyers out there…)
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